


Modern Days

by toyhto



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Also a gentleman, Alternate Universe - World War I, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Jon is being shy, Skinny Dipping, This is the most fluff I can do atm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 06:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7923592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Then one day he saw Sansa, and his first thought was to turn around and flee.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Modern Days

**Author's Note:**

> Written for valar-morekinksplease, the prompt was "Jonsa skinny dipping" and I mixed it up with WWI because, obviously, the World Wars are my favourite AU setting.

He watched over the campfire as she smiled. He had found out hours ago that he couldn’t get his eyes off of her, and now he had stopped trying altogether. She wasn’t looking at him anyway, actually she hadn’t really looked at him the whole evening. It was fine, of course, she had to have missed Robb terribly and now that they had finally got their first leave, he had no reason to blame her for concentrating on her brother.  
  
This way it was like he had her all for himself, he thought and then bit his lip. It wasn’t like that or, at least, it wasn’t supposed to be like that. And still he kept watching her as she smiled fondly at Robb, toying with her long red braid, and hours went by, and the night grew darker, and still he sat there, his eyes fixed on her.  
  
He and Robb had come to London almost three days ago by train, and even though it had been early in the morning and the fog had still covered the streets, the whole family had been there, waiting for them. They had hugged and kissed Robb, everyone but Rickon who had asked loudly who the strange man was, and Robb had said _it’s been a long time_ and laughed but Jon had seen the shadow on his face. It had been a long time indeed. Back when he and Robb had left, everyone had been telling them they’d be home for Christmas.  
  
_They’ve all changed,_ Jon had thought in the platform, still wearing his uniform. _And I’ve changed._ He wasn’t sure how exactly, only that he felt old and strained and absurdly tired as Ned gave him a quick hug and Catelyn smiled at him with the warmest smile he had ever got from her. Arya had hugged him tightly and he had thought, _she was a little girl when I left_ , and then Sansa had been standing in front of him with a tentative smile on her lips and a slight frown on her forehead. He hadn’t known what to say to her and she had given him a quick kiss on his cheek. As they had took the bus home, he had sat quiet and wondered about the weird squeeze in his stomach.  
  
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to sleep?” Sansa asked now, and Jon blinked his eyes, tearing his gaze away from her, but it was okay, neither of them was looking at him anyway. “Your train is leaving really early.”  
  
“Yeah,” Robb said slowly, “no, let’s stay a little longer. Who knows when we get back home again, might be when all this is over.”  
  
“But it’s going to be over soon,” Sansa said, and there was something urgent in her voice. It felt very familiar, and also it made Jon feel very tired. He knew Robb threw a glance at him now and kept his own gaze lowered.  
  
“Well,” Robb said with a long sigh, “let’s hope so. Let’s just hope so.”  
  
“I’ll be so happy when you come back for good,” Sansa said, “both of you.” She turned to look at Jon and he had plenty of time to draw his gaze away but he didn’t. And then Sansa was staring at him and he was frozen, he just stared her back and she was so beautiful and so very different from all the madness that would swallow him once again tomorrow.  
  
“Let’s not talk about it,” Robb said with a rough voice, “we get plenty of it when we get back there. Tell me something else. Tell me something about you.”  
  
“There’s really nothing to tell,” Sansa said. The fire had grown smaller but it was still burning bright, and the shadows on her face were steep. “I don’t do much else than work in that factory.”  
  
“So,” Robb said, something strained in his voice, like he was trying very hard to make it sound easy, “so no one special in your life then?”  
  
“Like a boyfriend?” Sansa asked sharply, and Jon drew his gaze away from her and into the shoreline where the waves were washing over the sand with a steady beat, never growing tired. Perhaps in years to come, when the war would be over, won or lost, he wasn’t sure if he even cared anymore, perhaps everything else would have changed and the sea would still be the same. “No. No boyfriends. Don’t worry, Robb.”  
  
“I wasn’t worrying,” Robb objected weakly, “I was just… trying to get to know you again.”  
  
“You know me,” Sansa said, her voice getting softer, and Jon inhaled deeply as she smiled at Robb, “and when all this is over and you’re back home, then we’ll have the rest of our lives to get to know each other again. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here.”  
  
“Rickon didn’t know me anymore,” Robb said, his voice barely a whisper now.  
  
“He’s just a kid. He’ll know you. You’ll come back and you’ll be his big brother again and he’ll think you’re a hero.”  
  
“A hero? Sansa, I’ve killed people. Not many but I see their faces in my sleep. They were young, like boys put into men’s clothes, and I saw the fear in their eyes. They were desperate to live. Just like me.”  
  
“It’s not your fault.”  
  
Robb sighed deeply. “Perhaps not. But please, tell me something, something that doesn’t have anything to do with mud and trenches and dying men.”  
  
“So,” Sansa said, still speaking to Robb but she glanced at Jon through the fire, “so, do you have a girlfriend? Back there?”  
  
“A girlfriend?” Robb was almost laughing but it was a dark laugh. “No. It’s not like that.”  
  
“I’m sure the girls love uniforms.”  
  
“We wouldn’t know, would we, Jon?” Robb said, and now they were both looking at him. He straightened his back and realized the fire was going out. The air was damp, the rain was probably coming, and the sky was full of clouds so that he couldn’t see any stars. He swallowed and tried to smile but it got stuck on his face, and he drew a deep breath.  
  
“No. We wouldn’t.”  
  
“You could have gone to a bar or something like that,” Sansa said with something weird in her voice, “instead of hanging around with me this last night. You might have got lucky.”  
  
Jon shook his head. He wanted to say something he shouldn’t, something like _there’s no one else I’d rather spend this night with_. He would embarrass himself and Robb would get angry and Sansa wouldn’t want to sit by the fire with him anymore. Robb saved him, standing up and turning towards the sea.  
  
“I want to go swimming. It must be warm.”  
  
“It’s freezing,” Sansa said with a frustrated sigh, “Robb, it’s only June.”  
  
“I don’t care. Let’s go. This is our last night home and we’re just talking about everything I’d rather forget.”  
  
“I don’t have a swimming suit.”  
  
“Don’t worry,” Robb said, “it’s dark anyway. Right, Jon?”  
  
“It’s dark,” Jon managed to say. He was quite sure Sansa was looking at him, but he couldn’t face her now. He stood up and followed Robb to the water, and Sansa had been right, it was freezing. He barely saw Robb’s face now that there was no fire anymore, but Robb grabbed his shoulder and pulled him close for a moment and he thought there was a question in his cousin’s eyes, or maybe it was a plea. _Please,_ Robb was saying, _please do something stupid with me, can we please do this one thing that’s got nothing to do with the war.  
  
_ “We’re going to freeze our asses off,” he said.  
  
“I don’t care.” Robb’s voice was intent. “I don’t fucking care. I just want to be nineteen for half an hour.”  
  
Jon nodded, and Robb began taking his clothes off so fast he could hardly follow. In the corner of his eye he saw Sansa walking slowly to them, and then he thought he saw her pulling her shirt off. He closed his eyes, surely he had to say something, he couldn’t go into water with Sansa, not when he had been staring at her for the whole night… But Robb had already got rid of his clothes and was now standing naked on the water, waves raising onto his knees, and he was laughing with a fierce sound that made Jon’s chest ache.  
  
“For fuck’s sake,” he muttered and took his clothes off as quickly as he could, because Sansa had to be standing right behind him and he couldn’t even think about her now, and then he followed Robb to the water. “ _Holy fuck_ it’s cold.”  
  
“You didn’t use to swear before,” Sansa said, and he turned around and saw her far too close to him. He could see her skin, pale and white in the dark, and he bit his lower lip trying to keep his gaze on her eyes.  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“It’s not that cold!” Robb shouted, and he turned around and saw him swimming. “It just takes a few seconds to get used to. It’s really quite nice.”  
  
“It’s definitely not nice,” Sansa said, and then she, _thank God,_ dove into water. After a few seconds she came back to the surface, breathing hard and with a grimace on her face. “Shit, _shit,_ this is terrible. Why do we always do stupid things after him?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Jon said, because Sansa was looking at him again and therefore the question must have been for him. “I don’t really know.”  
  
“We must love him.”  
  
“We do.” Robb was too far away to hear them now, and Jon hold his breath as she swam to him and then rose onto her feet in front of him. She covered her breasts with her hands, the water barely reaching her waist, and Jon swallowed and tried very much not to look like he felt. Robb was laughing quietly and not very happily further on the sea, and Jon knew this was bad, this was very bad, he couldn’t be left alone with Sansa because he’d change into stuttering idiot and could never face her again.  
  
“We shouldn’t,” he managed to say and immediately wished he hadn’t.  
  
Sansa looked like she knew what he was talking about, which only made him more terrified. “Oh. It’s nineteen sixteen, Jon. Modern days. And it’s dark and we’re practically family.”  
  
“Still,” he said. He was going to dive into water and swim to Robb, he really was, but she was looking at him with serious eyes and he just couldn’t move.  
  
“He sounds like he’s terrified,” Sansa said.  
  
“He is,” he said. Sansa dropped her hands and he stared at her before blinking and raising his gaze back into her eyes, and Robb was swearing now, and it all seemed to make a little less sense. “It’s too cold. Let’s get back.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sansa breathed out, turned around and began walking back with unsteady steps. He followed her, and through the darkness he watched the soft curve of her hips and pale, pale skin on her back and her wet hair running down the shoulders. It was nineteen sixteen and he didn’t know if it made any difference, but he might be dying tomorrow or the day after or any other day to follow, and perhaps that did.  
  
“Sansa,” he called her and she stopped. He heard Robb cursing the cold water and the stupidity of men. Sansa was looking at him over her shoulder and his heart drummed madly in his chest, and he knew madly beating heart, he knew what it was like to run in the mud and wait to be shot. But this was different. She stood still when he reached her. There was an absent thought in his head, _Robb will see us_ , but it was dark and the world might be ending tomorrow, and he pressed his thumb gently against her jaw and her lips. “Can I – “  
  
But he couldn’t make it into words. He kissed her and she let out a soft moan that could have meant just anything, but then she grabbed his shoulders and pulled him closer. Her skin was warm and he wasn’t sure what was happening but she was leaning against him, all this skin, all this warm skin on his. She had to feel his heart beating. She had to know he was lost with words and thoughts. She had to realize he was kissing her like it was the only thing that meant anything to him, and still she kissed him back.  
  
“I wish – “ Robb said, and Sansa startled and Jon drew back so quickly he almost fell back into the water, “ – just fucking wish we had one more day. I’m dead cold, why did we go swimming?”  
  
Robb walked right past them. Jon threw a glance at Sansa, but it was too dark, he couldn’t see if she was happy or angry or anything, and then she followed Robb out of the water and put on her clothes but didn’t stop shivering. And Jon bit his lip and tried not to look at them, and the fire had gone out, his fingers were numb and his toes were numb and he still couldn’t quite catch his breath.  
  
As they walked back to the house he thought he saw Robb frown at him, but he wasn’t sure. _Surely Robb will mention it_ , he thought, _if he saw us he will mention it._  
  
But Robb never did, and the day Jon came back from the war he still wondered.  
  
  
**  
_  
  
You’ll be home for Christmas, _ they had said. _Sure,_ he thought as he stepped out of the train and breathed in the cold air. Christmas would be in a few weeks, only it was four years late.  
  
He didn’t go home, though. He rented a small flat in East London and found a job in a factory that made engines. Arya kept writing and asking when he would be coming home, and after the Christmas had gone and he had spent it sitting on his bed, reading books he didn’t think he liked anymore, he stopped writing her back.  
  
Perhaps if it hadn’t been for that night by the sea, it would have been easier to go back. Sansa didn’t probably even remember it anymore, and perhaps Robb wouldn’t have either, but that he would never know. There was no way to ask Robb if he had seen his cousin kissing his little sister. There was no way to assure him Jon would never hurt her, would never harm her in any way and, frankly, thought he was in love with her.  
  
There just was no way.  
  
Robb would have forgiven him. He knew it, of course he knew it. He wasn’t supposed to feel guilty and still he did. He had seen Robb that last morning, putting on his helmet and grabbing his gun, and he had seen him afterwards when there really hadn’t been much left of him to see. And he had thought, _I kissed his sister._  
  
Two weeks after Christmas he saw a young man with a black coat and a curly brown hair walking across the street, and the name was already in his mouth before he managed to bit his lip. When he walked back home, he thought perhaps it wasn’t about Sansa. Perhaps he was just a coward. Perhaps he couldn’t face them, because if he faced them he would see the same grief in their eyes and then he wouldn’t be able to bear his own.  
  
When the summer came, he was still staying in his tiny flat. Arya had stopped writing, probably because Jon had never wrote back, not even to tell her he had got back from France. He supposed they knew he was alive, and even though he wasn’t having nightmares anymore and there were days when he didn’t stop to think about what had been left of Robb on that muddy field, he was pretty sure he’d never see the Starks again. He was different now, the whole world was different, there was no reason to go back.  
  
Then one day he saw Sansa, and his first thought was to turn around and flee.  
  
“Jon - ”  
  
He pressed his eyes tightly shut for a second or two and then turned around. Sansa was standing in the middle of the street, getting pushed and elbowed as people rushed past her to get to the trains and dinners and whatever it was people were always hurrying to. Jon swallowed. Surely he had to be somewhere too, surely there was a place he was supposed to be rushing to, but suddenly he couldn’t think of any. He felt his chest go.  
  
“Hi,” he said, and Sansa gave him a small smile.  
  
“Hi,” she said as he walked at her. “It’s been a long time.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
She shook her head. “Don’t be. I’ll forgive you when you buy me a cup of coffee and explain yourself.”  
  
He should have said no. His heart was already beating a little too fast and there was a tight knot in his stomach, something that past three years clearly hadn’t manage to take away from him. “Since when do you drink coffee?”  
  
Sansa bit her lip but smiled at him anyway. “You’ll have to find the place, though. I don’t know the city.”  
  
“Sure,” he said and wondered why his voice wasn’t shaking more.  
  
They sat beside the window on a small café, and suddenly he was afraid that perhaps she didn’t like the place, perhaps it was too cheap, what had he been thinking, what had gone into his mind and how the heck would he get out of there… but then she smiled and took a sip out of her coffee and he realized he was staring at her mouth.  
  
“So,” Sansa said after a few long minutes of silence.  
  
“So.”  
  
“So you’ve come back.”  
  
He took a deep breath. “Yeah. I was back in London before Christmas. Arya wrote to me but I just couldn’t go home.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“I don’t know,” he said and tried to hide his face behind the cup of coffee, “I suppose it was just… it was too much. With him being gone.”  
  
“We missed you, you know. You’re like family.” He frowned but didn’t realize it until Sansa sighed deeply and watched out of the window. “Well, Arya always saw you as her brother. I didn’t, but you know that already.”  
  
He blinked. Sansa raised an eyebrow and suddenly he had difficulties drinking his coffee.  
  
“Sorry,” Sansa said, watching him as he cleared his throat, “maybe that was a bad joke.”  
  
“It was a joke?”  
  
“No,” she said slowly, “no, it wasn’t. So, what do you do now?”  
  
“I got a job,” he said, “in a factory. It pays for my flat.”  
  
“You have a flat? Here? Can I see it?”  
  
“See it? It’s really… really not… it’s hot like hell right now, and I don’t really think…”  
  
“Fine,” she said smiling, and the smile made it a bit more difficult for him to breathe, “I’ll ask again later. Anything else new?”  
  
“No,” he said and then swallowed, “and you, are you… what are you…”  
  
“I came here for a job interview, actually. I’m trying to find something. I took this course in typing and thought I was good at it but nothing has come up yet, so I’m pretty much at home these days, doing nothing.”  
  
“So, you don’t have a…”  
  
“A husband,” she said and he nodded shortly. “No. I don’t.”  
  
“Well,” he said, “okay. Good. Fine.”  
  
“Yeah.” She was watching him and he had to look somewhere else. “Remember what we did last time?”  
  
He swallowed. “Excuse me?”  
  
“We went swimming,” she said, and perhaps there was a hint of a smile on her lips or perhaps he imagined. “And it was freezing but we followed Robb anyway.”  
  
“Sansa – “  
  
“I miss him terribly,” she said, grabbing his hand that had been lying on the table, and he couldn’t decide whether to look at her eyes or the hand that was holding his. “And I know you do too, so you don’t have to say it aloud. But, Jon, it’s not freezing cold today. We could go swimming.” He opened his mouth, but she squeezed his hand a bit tighter, “please. We can take the bus. I’ll go home with the last train. Let’s do it, it’ll make us feel better like it did last time.”  
  
It was a funny thing, he thought as she hold his hand over the table, he had been sure there was nothing left of the boy he had once been. And still his heart ran faster when he nodded and tried to answer Sansa’s smile. He followed her to the bus stop and then they sat next to each other as the city looked them through the window, street by street, until finally they were there. Sansa told him they had to find a place with less people and he didn’t ask why, he only kept following her until there was this small cove with rocks and waves washing over them.  
  
“What are you doing?”  
  
Sansa set her shirt aside and smiled at him. “Look away, Jon, if you have to, but I want to swim.”  
  
“But surely – “  
  
“Surely I won’t get my perfectly fine clothes all wet. I’d freeze later, what the heck were you thinking? And you must come too. Come with your trousers on if you must.”  
  
In the end he didn’t. He took off his clothes but Sansa was already in the water, climbing over rocks and he couldn’t help but stare at her. Last time it had been dark, now the day was bright and sun shone on her red hair and he was sure he was blushing and there was no way to hide it. He followed her as quickly as he could, almost stumbling over the rocks for a few times, and then just as he was going to dive into the water, she turned around.  
  
“Sansa!”  
  
“Sorry, sorry,” she said, already in the water so that he could only see her head. He went down as quickly as he could. Sansa was quite surely smiling at him, and he tried very much not to think about her. “But really, don’t tell me you didn’t have a peek.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I’m just teasing you. Although I’m sure you’ve seen girls before.”  
  
He inhaled deeply. The water wasn’t as cold as it could have been, the sun was warm on his shoulders and Sansa was smiling at him, her head just above the water. It wasn’t really that bad. It was probably the most happiness he had felt after he had come back, and it made him quite nervous.  
  
“It’s not a long list,” he said.  
  
Sansa’s laughter was bright and he felt his own lips carving into a smile. “Fine, no teasing then. So you don’t have anyone, either?”  
  
“What? A…”  
  
“A girlfriend.”  
  
“No.” His mouth tasted like salt, the seagulls were shouting at the sky and Sansa was eyeing him.  
  
“Sometimes I wondered,” Sansa said, and he realized he was holding his breath, “what would have happened back then if you hadn’t had to leave.”  
  
“I didn’t tell him,” he heard himself saying, and suddenly he was cold. “Maybe he saw us but he never mentioned it. And I thought I’d have to speak to him, to… to say I would never… never do anything to hurt you. But I never got to it.”  
  
“It’s okay,” Sansa said, coming closer to him through the water. “He would have been fine with it. He always thought you were like a brother to him, even before you came to live with us after your mom died.”  
  
“I should have asked him anyway.”  
  
“No,” she said, and now there was something firmer in her voice, “it’s not his business, Jon, it really isn’t. It’s yours and mine. I really missed you when you were gone again. And I thought that perhaps, next time you would come to holiday, I would talk to you and perhaps we… but you never came.”  
  
He drew a deep breath. Sansa’s smile was sad and his chest was aching, but the water was warm, it was 1919, the war was over and they kept saying in the newspapers and at the streets that there was never going to be another. He took a step closer to her, and then another, and then cursed under his breath, because she just stayed there, waiting. And he had heard a lot of talk about courage, back then, as if it were about courage and not about being pushed into a place where all you can think is that you don’t want to die, but now all those empty phrases ran through his head anyway as he cleared his throat and stopped in front of her.  
  
“I’d kiss you,” he said, “if you want me to.”  
  
“Yes, please,” she said and he was quite sure she was mocking him, but this time he didn’t mind.  
  
He was going to kiss her, he really was. He was going to hold her face and gently caress her cheeks with his thumbs, and perhaps her mouth too, and he was going to lean closer through the water and place a soft kiss on her red lips. He was too late, though, because she did all that before he could and oh, she was kissing him, she really was, and when she almost fell off the rocks he had to catch her. She laughed and grabbed his shoulders, and he was pretty much carrying her in his arms, which would have been much more difficult without the water holding them.  
  
Also, he was very well aware of the fact that they were both naked.  
  
“Sansa – “  
  
“Modern days,” she said and kissed him again.  
  
They kissed until she was shivering with cold, and it was only then that Jon noticed there was a couple with three children on the shore, looking at them with very disapproving faces. The mother hurried the children away quite fast when they began walking to the shore. Sansa was laughing as they took their wrinkled clothes from the rocks and put them on, and on the bus they sat quiet and still she was smiling, and he placed his hand on her thigh and then hold his breath, waiting for her to push it away but she didn’t.  
  
“Show me your flat,” Sansa said, as they stepped out of the bus.  
  
“Let me marry you,” Jon said.  
  
Sansa laughed and then froze. “You have to come home. You have to. Come to dinner tomorrow night, or next week, whenever you can.”  
  
“I’ll miss him,” he said, “and I might cry.”  
  
“Then cry,” she said. “I’ll hold your hand.”


End file.
